


Beauties Pass Before Thee

by Glinda



Category: Doctor Who (Big Finish Audio)
Genre: Episode Related, F/F, Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-01-09
Updated: 2010-01-09
Packaged: 2017-10-06 00:47:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,101
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/47848
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Glinda/pseuds/Glinda
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They promised her snow, Chicago has plenty to spare.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Beauties Pass Before Thee

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [](http://sneakyangel.livejournal.com/profile)[**sneakyangel**](http://sneakyangel.livejournal.com/) in the [](http://community.livejournal.com/princesserimem/profile)[**princesserimem**](http://community.livejournal.com/princesserimem/) ficathon for the the prompt: _Peri/Erimem fluff. The higher the rating, the better._ Fluff I have provided, however despite my intentions the story stayed stubbornly PG and went other places instead. Many thanks to [](http://moviegrrl.livejournal.com/profile)[**moviegrrl**](http://moviegrrl.livejournal.com/) for beta-ing and pointing out my split infinitives. Story largely inspired by walking round the Cultural Center in Chicago (and especially by [this](http://www.flickr.com/photos/49701650@N00/3271566229/)) where the idea of Peri and Erimem in Chicago sprang to life almost full-formed. (Set post-_Roof of the World_

Ever since Tibet her dreams have been cold, still and silent. Sometimes she wanders the corridors of the TARDIS in her dreams, watching ice and frost bloom and spread across the walls. In the darkest of those dreams her travelling companions are to be found encased in ice, eyes wide with frozen accusatory stares. Leaving her to walk the corridors of their cold, dead, unforgiving ship endlessly.

Sometimes at night when she cannot sleep, or the dreams have forced her into wakefulness, she wanders the corridors with their dimmed night-time lights. Soothing her with the gentle, reassuring hum of the engines. She hates to wake her travelling companions, but oft times she comes across the Doctor similarly sleepless, reading in the library or tinkering with the TARDIS. Sometimes Peri joins them grumbling about people that don't know the meaning of sleep and Erimem can drift off to the sound of affectionate arguments or literary debates. If she should wake to their soft voices speaking of her, their words are filled with affection and concern about the dreams that so clearly haunt her. She wraps their words around her like a blanket and returns to sleep a little deeper.

They'd promised her snow, and Chicago in winter has plenty to spare. They land in the suburbs and take one of the strange tall trains, so different from the one she travelled across India in, into the city itself. They sit in the balcony and Peri ignores the signs, folding her feet defiantly on the empty luggage rack in front of them until the conductor appears. This at least has not changed since her last rail journey, so she watches him intently in his crisp uniform with the cap that bears his job title as he punches their tickets with his odd machine, listening to his deep calm voice as he answers her questions. She watches him walk away with a smile and a nod, thoughts drifting until the Doctor's derisive snort returns her to the here and now, and she turns to catch Peri sneaking her feet back onto their former perch. Unable to resist the temptation of the Doctor's expression, she sneaks her own feet up to join them, and the companionable arm that Peri slides round her shoulder is reward enough. She has so many questions about this time and place but they can wait; for now she is content to watch the flatness of Illinois roll past the window. Letting the sound of the Doctor's history lesson on the westward push of the railroads a century before, flow over her with only Peri's occasional interjections of anecdotes about place names they pass to keep her from drifting to sleep.

The Doctor strikes off on his own, seeking out an old friend whose ear he wishes to bend, so the pair of them decide to play at being proper tourists. While Peri flicks through leaflets and haggles with young man on the desk about the respective merits of different bus tours, Erimem finds herself more intrigued by the building that houses the visitor information centre and sneaks away to explore.

Peri catches up with her in a narrow corridor lined with black and white photos of architecture. She reads aloud from a leaflet she's picked up, doing her best impression of the Doctor in lecture mode, droning on about architects and geography. Erimem ignores her, staring determinedly at the photos along the walls, wondering when the novelty of capturing ephemeral moments forever wore off for people of Peri's time. Intellectually she understands how the process works, she pestered the Doctor for an explanation until he took her off to the TARDIS darkroom and patiently taught her how to develop her own. Peri had endless patience then for her and the 'dreadfully old-fashioned' camera Erimem had captured her with; eager for photographs to practice her new skill on. It seemed a strange kind of magic watching flowers and faces appear on the page, the past pinned to the page in front of her. There is wonder here for her too, in seeing buildings that no longer stand, and those that still remain from angles she never can in real life. She would rather stand before them and touch the stone and wood, but their images hold a strange power of their own.

At the other end of the corridor, they find a marble clad entrance hall, and Erimem resists the urge to remove her shoes, reminding herself that this is was a library not a temple. Oddly enough Peri seems to share her awe, voice lowered as though it was still a library as she points out the mosaic details, in mother of pearl and favrile glass. At the top of the second flight of stairs they unexpectedly come across a string quartet giving a concert. The sound reverberating through the halls with their stained glass domes and literary quotations, adding to the surreal atmosphere of the place.

Once the quartet has vacated their stage and the audience dispersed, they are free to wander at will. All around the hall the words of prophets and philosophers stare down at them, speaking their wisdom on books and learning in their own tongues. She can't help but marvel at the civilisations that have risen and fallen between her own time and this one. Yet stumbling across the words of her own time amid all the other shocks her into stillness. Seeing them there upon the wall, inlaid in green and white marble, not quite perfect but close enough to fill her with an unexpected wave of homesickness, she longs to touch them. To prove with muscle memory that some part of the civilisation that shaped her still exists thousands of years later. Those beautiful pictograms staring out of the past at her, making perfect effortless sense as she reads them; no need to analyse or puzzle over the meaning. She reads the words aloud caressing them with her tongue instead of her fingers, wondering when they were last spoken aloud. It's not until she feels the weight of Peri's head upon her shoulder, the dryness of her cheek against her own wet one that she realises she's been crying. Peri's whispered translation of the words are, she thinks, the most beautiful thing she's ever heard in English, clumsy syllables made poetic. Unable to speak her thanks, she gratefully kisses her friend. Hand in hand they watch the sun set over the snow-clad city, standing in the huge picture window she feels both farther from and closer to home than she ever has before.


End file.
